t is in it, and which transcends time itself? I believe that God is outside time, that God does not take an interest in the day-to-day lives of anyone on this planet, and that while God may have created the universe·or caused it to be created·God has long since stopped intervening in the universe, if indeed such intervention ever occurred.
This concept of God goes against traditional Christian teachings of God, the Devil and evil. I believe that human beings commit deeds which some label evil, but I do not believe that evil exists as a separate external force in the world, let alone that it is the primary power wielded by the devil. The Holocaust, often held up as the paragon of evil of the twentieth century, was perpetrated largely by bureaucrats who found a way to commit mass mtrder without getting personally involved. Man has found ways to kill, torture, dominate and enslave his fellow man for thousands of years, across cultures and religions. In my understanding, God does not prevent evil, he does not weep over evil, he does not fight evil.
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral is only mildly helpful in constructing a viable theology. It assumes, for example, that Scripture is one side of the quadrilateral, but this assumes a Christian orientation to the theology to begin with. While Judaism, Christianity and Islam have formal scriptures that could form one side of a quadrilateral, other non-Abrahamic religions do not, yet there are millions of Hindus and Buddhists whose theologies are not based on scripture as Westerners understand the concept. My own theology is indeed borne out of tradition and experience, but my struggle also comes from reason. I suspect that reason is the most important of the four elements of the quadrilateral. This is because any theology must conform to reason as we understand it, or one's belief system will ultimately fail.
It is indeed reason that causes me to stop and pause when considering the ...